The O’Reilly Series will travel to Watkins Glen for another road course race. The first road course race at COTA was won by Shane van Gisbergen. He is back this weekend, and he has some competition. Connor Zilisch and Ross Chastain are also in the race. Will one of these Cup Series drivers win another road course race in the O’Reilly Series or can one of the younger drivers find Victory Lane at Watkins Glen? It should be fun to see how it all plays out. The Mission 200 at the Glen can be seen Saturday at 4 p.m. ET on CW Channel.
FANTASY STATS FOR WATKINS GLEN
Road Course racing in no stranger to the O’Reilly Series. “The Series Where Names are Made” competed on five road course races last year. All road course tracks are not created equal though. I will use the stats from the races at Watkins Glen, Sonoma and Portland to handicap the race Saturday. I also want some of the 2026 road course speed to be a factor, so I will also use the results from the race at COTA this year. This should give us an idea of which drivers are good on the road courses and which had some speed in 2026.
Here is the driver’s Average DraftKings Points in the road course races last year and the race at COTA in 2026…
PRACTICE / QUALIFYING
NASCAR canceled qualifying and they gave the teams over an hour to shake down their cars for today’s race. There are a lot of good drivers who start deep in the field. There are not enough dominator points to chase in the race today. I will treat the Mission 200 at the Geln like a Superspeedway race. I am stacking the drivers who start deep in the field with a good chance to score place differential points.
Here are the speeds from Saturday’s practice at Watkins Glenn…
DRIVER RANKINGS FOR WATKINS GLEN
STRATEGY FOR WATKINS GLEN
The race today is scheduled for 82 laps (200 Miles). That means there are 20.5 points available for leading laps and 36.9 points available for fastest laps (56.9 dominator points). That is not a lot of dominator points to chase this week.
Shane van Gisbergen is priced at $15,500 today and Connor Zilisch is $15,000. Are they worth paying up for? SVG has never been in the winning lineup at Watkins Glen. He only led 11 laps last year and 14 laps in 2024. Zilisch has been in the winning lineup a lot. You can play one of these stars, but it may be a good idea to fade both of them. There simply is not enough laps in the race for SVG and Zilisch to outscore their competitors by a significant margin. I will have some ownership of SVG and Zilisch, but not as much as the rest of the field. I will take my chances with Ross Chastain and the O’Reilly Series regulars who have had a lot of success on the road course tracks.
WINNING LINEUPS AT WATKINS (2024-2025)
Connor Zilisch, not Shane van Gisbergen is the driver who has dominated the races at Watkins Glen. Will this trend continue now that Zilisch moved to the Cup Series and his O’Reilly Series team in not his full-time team? I doubt it will matter much. He has too much talent at this track to not be a contender today.
The best value play in your DraftKings Contests at Watkins Glen has been Austin Green. He has been in the winning lineup in both races over the last two seasons. There is a good chance that Green does it again today.
The winning lineups typically spend the entire $50K salary cap. Do not try to be cute and leave a lot of salary on the table today. You will likely need to spend the money to get the top drivers into your lineups.
DRAFTKINGS CASH LINEUP
DRAFTKINGS TOURNAMENT LINEUP
Good Luck Saturday!
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